Hot Stuff

Well the Chilliboy finally makes it to the big time. Good luck good man. You bear the mantle of being the most likely man to keep the ominous threat of excessive political interference in the game at bay. As said earlier in the year, you have the brand to unite the nation behind you much like Ntini has done for cricket.

Why do you wave the Orange White & Blue?

Well, we won the rugby and that perhaps saved Jake White's bacon for a few months. But the entire occasion was spoiled by the immature behaviour of a number of South African so called supporters who decided it was cool to wave the oranje, blanje, blou. The sad thing about these individuals is that they were not beer-bellied and moustached. They were in their early twenties, born just a few years before Mandela's release. I both cringe and weep for their ignorance.

Follow up: article here.

“We are proud South Africans and we no longer live in the new South Africa,” said Johannes Wolfaardt (21).Asked how they reconcile their view with the fact that if it were not for the new South Africa the Springboks would not be playing at Twickenham, Wolfaardt looked a bit surprised. “What you’re saying is not what my dad says. And what he says, is true.” Well I hope you stay there.

Up the Organization

Well, I suppose it's a good thing that blogging has moved down the list of priorities in my life at present. Driven jointly by arriving in a hectic new job and having a IT network that seems to circumnavigate the world before getting to the www. (Damn slow it is too).

My posting history this month has been abysmal, I do concede. Ironic - that being in a environment that I'm learning so much & having my brain crammed with so much information and thoughts of how to deal with this information I just don't have much time to share that with my dear blog community.
Some thoughts on business life now that I'm finally outside the professional services.

• Selling time by the hour sucks, how on earth did I ever manage 8 years of weekly timesheets?
• This is so much more real but I learned a hell of lot by being allowed to scratch around in the underbelly of many paying clients over the years.
• People believe they can and do succeed in getting away with virtually anything . I still believe it will catch up with them one day.
• Racism remains frighteningly present in our society.
• Traffic sucks , one cannot believe what a pleasure it is to get to work in less than 5 minutes.

I noted in my previous post of how good this book is. But I'm now convinced. I've selfishly decided not to give it my MD just so that I can quote little bits from it and quietly put plans into action based on the ideas in this book. Robert Townsend's book, "Up the Organization: How to stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits" is the best guide to managing a small business I have yet to stumble upon.

Just as an indication of Towsend's tone he makes suggestions that all executive offices ,including the CEO's, should be the same size (small) and furnished with the same basic furniture. Anyone who makes over $150 a week (in 1970!) should set his own office hours and should never have a job description. He also instigated a revolt when the book was first published and he indicated that no-one should have a secretary. (bearing in mind my borrowed copy is nearly 40 years old and coming apart at the seams - As it is now out of print I've ordered a replacement 2nd hand copy via Amazon for about $20 including shipping).

One of those weird quirks is that searching for this book, Amazon suggests I may also be interested in Gustav Mahler : Vienna : The Years of Challenge (1897-1904) by Henry-Louis De La Grange. I am not sure I see the relationship between the two subjects!

I've had a weird hunch since January 2006 that this year was a turning point in my life and that as look back on it over the years hence that this will become ever more apparent. So far so good. Just got to find a good pub in PE + (not that I haven't been trying) and it'll be a done deal.

+ by the way - kyk - the pub you mention is mere spitting distance from my new (very old) house.

And that reminds me I haven't quite worked out how my bank manager is going to handle our household's shift from 2 income single mortgage operation to that of a single income and double mortgage. (anyone want to buy/rent a decent place in Paulshof?).

My favourite phoney quote

"We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. "
Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.

Welcome to my life. It seems that I've been hired to do (some of) the reorganizing though. On top of moving towns, moving my life, buying a house, trying to sell the other house that I just bought and moved into.

Turns out that the above quote from old Petronius is probably phoney (made up, perhaps?). Anyway I am surrounded by plenty of confusion, ineffieciency and demoralization right now, but I don't believe I've ever been as energised and animated about a job as a am right now. May it last long.

I was reminded of the Petronius quote which I stumbled on ages ago while currently reading Robert Townsends, book, "Up the Organization: How to stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits". This book, written a year or two before I was born by the guy who turned AVIS around in the middle of last century is as relevant as ever. This review and this one provide a taster. Great book and beats 99.99% of all the other management claptrap literature that abounds, especially anything by Jack Welch.

MXit Schmixit

So what is all this fuss about Mxit? OK, I can buy the idea that it does provide a cheap alternative to SMS for bored teenagers with dextrous thumbs who want to talk to people they know and have set up as personal contacts. But the mainly bad press about it abounds.

When I was younger my parents and teachers all warned about not allowing oneself to be picked up by sweet talking strangers. Nothing has changed other than the vehicle that they are travelling in.

But the concept of trawling chatrooms at all hours of the day trying to find a like minded soul and finding such souls through brief abbreviated enquiries such as : asl pls? (translated as: Please would you be so kind as to let me know what your age, sex and language is?) is quite inane. I was curious about this and did try to see what all the fuss was about. But seriously it's too much effort. No one tried to pick up "80w" (get it atw ?) and it's just too much effort to try and engage in this. I'm not sure what I would have done had anyone decided that I was worth "going pvt" with anyway! There is simply no way of knowing if the counterparty is who they say they are.

No wonder parents are concerned, they should be. Not only because of the chance (small as it is) of their kids being picked up by a masquerading child pesterer but rather because the concept and discussion is so mindless and futile. If flirting and dating is being reduced to communicating in brief, thumb written monosyllabic abbreviations I pity the modern teen. Those any older, well they are just sad.

PS. for those who were wondering I am still alive.